Ritz Theatre

803 N. Rolla Street,

Rolla,
MO65401

The Ritz was left unlocked shortly before demolition, and I couldn’t resist taking a flashlight in and looking around. The seats and screen had been pretty well worked over by vandals. While one of the restrooms was wrecked, the other had apparently been kept viable by workmen doing pre-demolition salvage—it was in decent shape, stocked with paper towels and soap. In the balcony I found a homemade Superman costume neatly folded up inside a plastic bag.

A while after the Ritz was knocked down, I looked up the Rolla newspaper from the demolition date. While there were several photos and a detailed history on the adjacent car dealership that was also demolished, no mention was made of the Ritz.